Referring now to FIG. 1, a block diagram of a system 100 employing a 10 Gbps media independent interface (XGMII) according to the prior art is depicted. A switch 102 contains a media access controller (MAC) 104. The MAC 104 communicates with a 10 Gbps physical layer device (PHY) 106 within a PHY module 108 via an XGMII connection 110. The terms MAC, PHY, and many others are explained in IEEE Standard 802.3ae (30 Aug. 2002), which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The XGMII is a simple and easy to implement interconnection between the switch 102 and the PHY module 108, but it only supports a very limited connection distance between the switch 102 and PHY module 108. As such, a repeater layer that can extend the reach of XGMII was developed.
Referring now to FIG. 2, a system 130 according to the prior art contains a switch 132 and a PHY module 134. Within the switch 132, a MAC 136 communicates with a first XGMII extender sublayer (XGXS) module 138 via an XGMII link 140. The first XGXS module 138 communicates with a second XGXS module 142 via a 10 Gbps attachment unit interface (XAUI). The second XGXS module 142 communicates with a 10 Gbps PHY 146 via a second XGMII link 148. XAUI allows the switch 132 and PHY 134 to have a connection distance in the tens of inches, as compared to a limit of approximately 3 inches for an XGMII link (as in FIG. 1). The XGXS modules, 138 and 142, translate between XGMII and XAUI. This allows the design of the MAC 136 and the PHY 146 to remain unchanged while still achieving the extended reach of XAUI.